Should the children of Flint be resettled?

Given the threat of ongoing lead exposure and the community’s well-founded mistrust of government, should families be offered at least temporary resettlement while upgrades, repairs and enhancements are made to Flint’s badly contaminated water infrastructure?

I ask this fully aware of how unprecedented and complex such a policy would be. After all, some 9,000 young children may have been exposed to contaminated water.
— Washington Post

For more articles on urban health issues like the ongoing crisis in Flint, check out these links:

Specific to the title, removing children from their families to remove them from known toxins moves them into toxic conditions. Taking children away from their parents for an undetermined period of time is not an option.

The FEMA option is not an effective one, moving families collectively into trailer camps without any sense of closure (because no one knows when or how this will end) is far from a responsible solution. Added to that, you are removing people from place- forcibly. The impact of that could take generations to resolve.

Countering my own comments, this is in effect already a forcible removal by neglect. Just look at derelict mining towns in central Pennsylvania to imagine trajectory of this ecologically based wicked problem. As precedent this points to the need for equity in compensating (buyouts at market value prior to the "crisis") those individuals impacted, both in the short term and long term (as share in profits once the property is resold). This of course will never happen, and an entire community will suffer unforeseeable losses.

That would be a political circus and would not be successful. Governor Snyder appointed a financial manager to Flint who had decision-making powers to switch to the Flint water system from the Detroit system. Snyder did not make the decision himself. There were woeful missteps made within the Department of Environmental Quality at both the state and national levels, some bordering on criminal negligence, but none of that goes up as high as Snyder.

Snyder, while a Republican, is not a tea party conservative. He has actually been the most pro-Detroit governor the state has seen in decades and successfully helped Detroit maneuver itself through a quick and relatively painless bankruptcy that cleared the books of its debts while minimizing its impact on public employee pensioners. It could have been a hell of a lot worse considering what the city's finances were, but successful deals by the governor, mayor, private sector, and philanthropy saved a lot of pain.

That would be justice- which in this case benefits the residents of Flint how?

Exactly. The extent to which Hilary Clinton has politicized the tragedy of Flint is disgraceful and has done nothing to actually help the people of Flint. Blowhard figurehead politics at its worst.

I'm not clear as to how pulling Clinton into this conversation makes sense. The question at hand is how to provide restitution to the residents of Flint Michigan.

Jla did address this directly, but added to the hotels, meal, and transportation (not sure transpo is needed) vouchers would be needed to provide vouchers for storage (these are home, not dorms), and neighborhood security (vacant homes). Not to mention the question arises if there are enough hotel rooms in the region to provide housing and how many rooms per family. And still the question arises, for how long? That's some serious psychological stress.

Prosecuting the Governor outright may not make sense, but a comprehensive investigation of procedures and decision making are warranted- with the added benefit of identifying any prosecutable offenses.

However, the subtext of the conversation frames this matter potentially as the next bridgegate (I'm not suggesting it is, as I am not familiar with the players). But again, that's beside the point. What about the residents?

whether it was the governor or not, this is a huge screw up with regards to the city's infrastructure and a lot of people got hurt. there are a lot of cities facing similar aging infrastructure across the US, and i think it's important to understand that investing in maintaining that infrastructure is incredibly important. i'm sure there are a lot of cities and states facing difficult budget decisions, often due to their broken political climates. the next people facing the same sort of decision should understand these short-sighted choices that poison their populations shouldn't be allowed.

People of color (Ia m not a person of color) tend to not do well under Republican governors. Evacuate, airlift, or buy out the people of flint whose homes are worth next to nothing and whose jobs have all gone. The GM plant is pulling out because industry needs clean safe non corrosive water as much as residents do. I think the feds bailing out Michigan for their self imposed problem is also not the answer. A federal court ordered tax hike to pay for this to stick it to the suburban white republican base in Michigan is also not going to work. at best we should keep this in mind when we chose most of our government this November, under whose watch this happened and who is more committed to fix this and all other systemic racist and class based problems.

This is such a sad thing that you think we would never see in our country.

You states rights people. Give me a fucking break. Appointing an unelected "city manager" that sought to poison the population of Flint, is fucking criminal. The Emergency Manager is unprecedented; citizens have no right to recall, no standing to say no to a fucking thing, talk about paternalistic. Snyder is a rank cunt, justice, yeah he'll get it.

Now, as for what to do with a community poisoned. Love Canal and Chernobyl are extreme examples, but aside from trucking in water until the asshats running Michigan decide to spend a billion on new pipes, there's not much that can be done. I think maybe we move Grosse Point to Flint, and Flint residents to Grosse Point and then we'll see how fast solutions come from the state.

Feb 19, 16 10:13 pm ·

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I am not sure if re-settling is necessary. I am not informed on the entire extent of the problem but filtration systems can be installed to filter lead out so as to mitigate the problem until it reaches a level that is satisfactory. They should be able to flush the system through a filtration center that will cut the lead until it comes well into legal levels. The big lumps of lead should easily be ascertained and located in the pipes going from points of entrance for any of this stuff.

They need to install filters at the entrance points and a few other places in the system that will filter the lead level. Then work on pipe replacement.

Resettlement... no. Replacing pipes.. yes. Intermediate solutions, installation of filters systems at the reservoir, the water treatment facility, critical points along the water main distribution into neighborhoods and commercial districts and at the entrance into the homes and businesses.

Enough filters that are routinely replaced while new mains pipelines and mains are being installed should help solve a lot of the issues. First thing is to implement filtration. Lead is easily filtered.

It just needs to be done while the lead pipes are replaced.

Resettlement... no. It is a pain in the butt problem but fixable.

Feb 19, 16 10:44 pm ·

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Ultimately, the key is to replace the lead pipelines. Filters would be needed to bring water to safe enough level but I can't say to how much filters are needed but lead has been filtered even with simple carbon filters but filters would need to be water safe to allow water to filter through but lead would be caught up in the filter and they have to be replaced regularly. This should be routinely done by the city. It's a problem they have.

Ultimately, the solution is replace the pipelines. I don't know the extent of the problem. If it is just a neighborhood or so, then it would be simple to close some roads down for a week or so, open up the road to the pipes, shut the water off. Remove the old water main. This may require temporary relocating the residents in some kind of housing. Then install new pipelines. However, if the problem is pervasive and literally the whole infrastructure then the problem is a LOT harder.

The wholesale abandonment of a community due to environmental contamination is nothing new in the us, Flint is doomed and it was sliding downhill economically for decades. The corrosive and contaminated water fiasco is just the latest in series of environmental disasters brought on by greed. See example below

this destruction by neglect is often intentional and aimed at minorities. Potentially any part of Flint serviced by municipal water will need to have water mains and plumbing within the buildings replaced so the lead levels can come down to a "safe level" virtually every pipe in every house and every water main has to be replaced if it came in contact with the improperly treated water.

The city of Lansing is replacing its pipes using a method similar to laparoscopic surgery. It takes about 4 hours per house. The cost to do this in Flint would be 55 million. The mayor of Flint wants to start now, but the governor says it needs more study. His plan would cost 700 million.

Feb 20, 16 1:05 am ·

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Lets remember that the lead content is water level content of the lead mostly of floating particulate of lead. Change the water source back to clean water and replace the mains going to the homes and schools and commercial district where the problems occur will likely return lead level to legally compliant level.

Most homes will have copper or other such pipes so it really isn't a problem. Some of the pipes maybe terra cotta or steel/iron pipes. Most of the lead that would be still in the pipes will likely be caught in gunk that a little bit of draino over the next 5-10 years can't solve and push it down the system back into the wastewater treatment. The lead level would drop off when new mains are installed replacing the old pipes contributing to the lead levels. Basically, that is what we did in every other city over the years that had replaced its old pipe infrastructure with new. Add to that, lead wasn't a problem with every era of pipes.

You only have to remove the pipes or otherwise effectively 'retiring' the lead pipes. The steel pipes and the terra cotta pipes aren't the problem pipes.

If a home had lead pipes, it is usually only at the curb to the home usually at the perimeter. Inside the homes, the pipes were usually copper or other material not lead.

The problem is with lead service lines and untreated corrosive water that prompted the problem. The lead used in connecting copper pipe sections in homes used in lead solder connections is not of sufficient level to be a health issue. Human body can handle a certain level of lead in the body without adverse health issues. It is when it is excessive that it becomes a problem.

Flint, Michigan would only need to replace its lead service lines, lead main pipes, and lead levels will return back to normal / legal levels fairly shortly. Remember, the level of lead remaining inside homes would be flushed down and flushed out as clean water comes in pushing the contaminated water out. A decade after the pipes are replaced and Flint will be just fine like most of other cities that replaced or effectively removed the old lead lines from service even if the old pipes are still in the ground, new lines can be installed in parallel with the old lines severed and new hookup is done. They don't necessarily have to remove the old pipes completely but it can be just as effective to physically remove the old pipelines.

It all depends on the situation.

Feb 20, 16 2:02 am ·

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z1111,

I agree with you. All the study is just wasting tax dollars to make a bunch of reports without removing a single lead pipe and replacing it. $700 Million to think instead of replacing the old pipes with new non-lead pipes where it is already known and documented over the decades of which pipes are steel, lead, terra cotta. etc.

Once they replace the pipes with new ones and return water source to clean, treated water, the lead level will drop off.

$700 Million dollars to make a bunch of studies before you can even start is just fucking idiotic. If you have an emergency problem, you don't run it through 10 years of studies by every single environmentalist review and take, 15 times over, 1 TRILLION pages of reports later before you even get the first lead pipe removed to start fixing the problem.

Interesting tidbit: lead oxidizes very quickly when exposed to water. The oxide itself is fairly stable and not a large source of water contamination. It is the addition of chemicals such as chloramine that are used for disinfectionn that breaks down the oxidation into the water. Copper pipes and lead solder are bad because the copper 'washes' the oxidation off the lead.

I'm not sure anyone really knows the cost or is using the same assumptions.

I just did a quick b.o.t.e calculation based on some worst case scenario numbers ( every house requires new pipes). 35,000 ,000 X $6,000. (Reference found looking for z1111's source) that's 210 million alone, stops at the street and excludes commercial construction. There's no way to determine if this is required in a home, until you complete inspections- more cash. It not even 100% clear which pipes need to be removed because the records are in an difficult analog format.

So sure, to replace the pipes in the street I can see an easy 55 mil, but to resolve the problem systemically...

the irony in those who oppose corporations but support the Federal government over states is that states are nothing more than corporations, and the Federal government is essentially a super Corporation or a mobster who holds national defense and subsidies over the states heads. Inverse Extortion.

I guess the difference is, some people still believe the government in this country at any level performs civic duties to its citizens while private business only serves self interest...

Private corporations, one, is dumb. There are very few "private" corporations. Unless of course you're talking about mom and pop pizza joints. Multi-national corporations have zero fucking interest in American cities. Zero.0.

Second, yeah Federal Government is fucked up, but it's fucked up because "Corporations are people, my friend." Citizens United, and lack of campaign financing is the reason why the Fed is fucked.

big goverment is over regulated and only big business is capable of changing its regulations. hence grassroots uproars via Trump and Sanders. the whole fucking system is an age old machine that needs a reset button.

The problem is not regulation per se, but regulation being applied in the wrong places and big corps having power to lobby against beneficial regulations like labeling gmos... where as some African hair braider gets shut down for not having a cosmetology license, or some young chef cannot get a license to open a food truck...Its also not a matter of red vs blue...the dems have a bad history too of neglecting poor / working communities. I had the privilege to go to a hs that was 95% black 5% other....with unusually good management, teachers, funding...we had an amazing performance rate. Nearly 99% graduation rate, high 90 something % going to college, out preformed wealthy white schools, a few very successful allumni....it was a working class community adjacent to one of the highest crime areas in NYC. If you want to save money fighting crime and poverty invest in the community. It works. Without investment we get flint. Then we end up paying more later on in both lives and money.

Feb 20, 16 3:06 pm ·

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I may not know all the details and extent of the problem in Flint, Michigan as far as the contaminated water goes but I do know it is solvable albeit not cheap but it is solvable.

If malfeasance and intent is determined then I would personally hold those responsible parties for paying the cost. That is never going to happen because they don't have the money and are deadbeats.

It's always these kinds of a--holes.

The problem was something that should have been progressively resolved over the years through incremental replacement. This is how most cities done it. Rarely, have they resolve the problems at once.

Marc, I agree, replacing the pipes to the homes are only part of the problem. There is so much toxic sludge floating around in the system that a house can test near 0 one day and have astronomical levels the next(13,000 parts per billion, 5 parts per billion is cause for concern) that filters are ineffective.

I live close to the situation and have been exposed to a similar type of problem (water) and learned that only 1% of the water that is treated is ingested, so it’s a 1% problem. The trouble is the government-types think that we have to throw billions at at…the failure was a lack of study before they switched over…Snyder is correct to study the issue before going headlong into a kneejerk billion dollar solution.

This is a two pronged issue…the FBI is there looking for any wrongdoing…and everybody else is searching for a long term solution…in the meantime the locals need to give the “hep-me, hep-me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” routine a rest so everybody can think.

A broader issue is this bailout mentality…the counties bail out the cities, the states bail out the counties and the Feds bail out the states….and the Chinese are bail out the Feds….all this is falling right into the overall plan…..what ever happened to English Proverb: “As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.” The problem with Flint is deeper than the water…literally.

Miles, with respect to your DC reference, are you suggesting that chemicals are a possible long term solution? In DC the chemical solution was relatively short term, with proposed pipe replacements in 2010. I just can't imagine the fokes around American University putting up with chemical additives and super brita filters for as a long term solution.

Carrera, are you saying that only 1% of the homes in the area are effected, or 100% of the people drink only 1% of the total volume of water treated? I know the answer, but does this suggest that non-potable lines (toilets, laundry and lawns) should be introduced to accompany potable water lines? Perhaps you keep the existing lines as is, and add new smaller lines?

^ Yes, we only drink 1% of the water coming out of treatment plants, hardly a reason to rebuild the entire infrastructure. The problem of “healthy water” is an issue everywhere…think of the mounting ingredients they are using to make it “safe” to drink, which is a health concern in itself….need a new paradigm for that 1%.

^so you're suggesting decentralized supply sources layered into the exg system? I can't see how you can feasibly solve the problem by replacing the exg. single source system with another single source system- even if it is significantly smaller. Otherwise you must replace the entire system if it's the close to being 100% of the supply for 100% of the drinkers.

While I'm at it, what do you do with exg. effluent and related (storm water)?

When the city of Flint began getting their water from the Flint River, an anti-corrosive agent was supposed to be added to the water. It wasn't and the water corroded the inside of the iron and lead pipes through out the entire system.

beta, jla-x elaborated on what I was suggesting, and you know the lobbyists regulate this country.

I live in a very nice and highly taxed area in Jersey, when I was studying for my exams in the library, the water fountain had this letter page long warning about the water and some gas or something. said fuck it, and drank it, never killed me when I was kid.

maybe our infrastructure just sucks and that corporation called government doesn't run efficient enough to keep it up and as Carrerra points out, constantly looks for higher order bail-out.

Imagine if various infrastructure items were forced to compete, no chance at subsidies if you suck at what you do, and no chance of bail-out if you can't balance a budget.

Miles points out the Billion dollar opportunity, it will be, but it will be easy money for private corporations, the big ones, because you're dealing with the government. People that work 9-5, take an hour lunch, and don't address your problems if they're busy not wanting to work.

throw some money at start-ups to find the recipes in Flint, MI, and our brightest will flock there...oh wait, that might interfere with age old regulations, my bad.

When the city of Flint began getting their water from the Flint River, an anti-corrosive agent was supposed to be added to the water. It wasn't and the water corroded the inside of the iron and lead pipes through out the entire system.

This probably wasn't negligence, just stupid government employees to busy bitching about their retirement funds instead of paying attention.

The D.C. reference was just a guess at what some of the problems really are. Toxic supply is another. A cursory search shows 25 Superfund sites in Flint.

At a certain point it's all Fukushima, i.e., unfixable. But that won't keep a few people from making a ton of dough on it. Think Cheney-Halliburton-Iraq. Ca-ching!

Feb 20, 16 6:59 pm ·

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$700 Million study to do a $55 Million - $75 Million to fix the problem is a colossal waste of money and is classic government over studying. The problem with government is they either don't study or they over-study. When money is exhausted on all the study after study, the cost to fix the problem snow balls and balloons and eventually it becomes so expensive that the money to fix the problem is NEVER there and nothing ever actually gets done.

Studies after studies are governments way of burying the problem until people get so sick and tired of hearing it that they just stop doing anything.

I suggest replacing the problem areas along the distribution path as you go from source to destination. This doesn't mean every pipe as to be replaced but you start from the source down as you study the problem and take action. Removing the lead pipes solves the lead level problem. Those pipes needed to be and should have been replaced 20+ years ago. So its time to replace them. Just time they do it. While that is being done, they mainly need to implement filters so as to allow the population to stay since they can't fix it all at once.

You start with all known lead pipes. As you go along, you looking for, documenting undocumented lead pipes, etc. Any of those pipes become marked and if they are active (not old pipes that are no longer in-service to anything) they maybe removed or left in place at discretion but they be inventoried. You can't just rely on the documented stuff. Some stuff gets lost over time. A lot of cities that have been around for awhile, have had these kinds of issues. Astoria does. We have some pretty old pipes and infrastructure that exists documented and undocumented. I'm sure this is not unique. This happens in a lot of places. You take care of a majority of the problem by replacing old lead pipes which is where the lead is coming from and any other sources where the lead maybe coming from in the system.

There problem is lead content level. It is solvable but over studying has a problem of leading to no action ever being done.

Changing the source is easy. It begun not long ago when they switched from a good working source to a not so good source. Correct the issue between the current source and lead pipes.

They just need to fix that issue. Other superfund site issues are probably irrelevant and separate issues that are resolved over time through EPA processes.

What you would not want is the entire city of Flint, Mich. become an EPA superfund site.

Feb 20, 16 7:07 pm ·

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If all of Flint, Mich. becomes a superfund site, Flint, Mich. will be completely erased and returned to pre-human impact natural state before EPA would de-list the site. It would literally have all contaminated soils removed. All human infrastructure removed. It would be a essentially restored to essentially a natural estuary. It would practically restored to as much like what the area was like before Flint, Mich. was established. That is essentially what EPA requires of a site to become delisted.

$700 Million study to do a $55 Million - $75 Million to fix the problem is a colossal waste of money and is classic government over studying.

The US wasn't built this way, this is non-sense. Throw $1million at the problem via a competition for young recent Architecture graduates out of work to solve, no government regulations to obstruct something no one has ever thought of -

"Space, Time, and Architecture" - S. Giedion

"The balloon frame is closely connected with the level of industrialization which had been reached in America. Its invention practically converted building in wood from a complicated craft, practiced by skilled labor, into industry...[p.269]....

The inventor of the balloon frame was George W. Snow. he was born in Keene, New Hampshire, September 16, 1797, of an old American Family which traced back to the Mayflower.

He must have been rather a restless spirit, since he first left the family homestead for New York and afterwords went to Detroit with his wife. Under rather primitive conditions he crossed the state of Michigan, and finally, in a canoe paddled by an Indian guide, he reached the mouth of the Chicago River, July 12, 1832. The small community he found there - there were only two hundred and fifty inhabitants - pleased his pioneer temperament. He took an active part in its affairs for many years: in 1833, when Chicago became a city, Snow was appointed its first assessor and surveyor; he was elected alderman in 1849, and made drainage commissioner the same year; he was at one time chief of the pioneer hook and ladder company.

As one of his descendants remarks in a letter, like many of the first settlers Snow was something of a jack-of-all-trades. He was one of the earliest of the Chicago Lumber dealers, purchasing "Carver's Lumberyard" in 1835. He owned considerable land and conducted a real estate business. He was a building contractor, as well as a general contractor and financier.

Snow was not merely a surveyor; he had been educated as a civil engineer in his youth. This technical training may have led him to the invention of the balloon frame. How this came about and what his struggles were we do not know. The tag, "balloon frame," was a mere nickname, a jocular reference to the lightness of this new type of construction."[p.274]

let's fucking be American and Architects here and solve the problem the right way.

Marc, Not a scientist here…just added up how much water we are supposed to drink & multiplied that by the population, measured against the total of processed water. In my community of 500k that’s 1%. Fact is nobody even drinks that much water so the actual number is most certainly smaller.

The solution is simple, just don’t drink it…infinitely cheaper to call Jeff Bezos and have him deliver what you need to drink to your doorstep. Would cost about $3.15/day/household for God sake…how much do people spend on beer & Coke per day? In a population like Flint that’s $100,000/day….it would take 40 years to equate to $1.5 Billion, which is the real number.

What people don’t understand is that most municipal water sources are “unsafe at any speed” and shouldn’t be paying for 100% of the water to be 100% “pure”, because in the best of cases it isn’t “pure”. No consumable water should have chemicals in it, of any kind.

Trillions of empty plastic water bottles is not the final solution, but if people would get real with the problem surely a better solution could be found….by architects not engineers.